Presentation On

COHERENCE AND COHESION RELATIONS

Presented ByM.Sajid us SalamM.Phil LinguisticsThe Islamia University Bahawalpurcupidlucid@gmail.com

Coherence : a very general principle of interpretation of language in context.

“A reasonable connection or relation between ideas, arguments, statements etc”.

(Oxford Advanced Learners, Dictionary)

Linguists tend to focus on cohesion markers

Cohesion:The various kinds of cohesion had been outlined by MAK Haliday in his writing on stylistics and the concept was developed by Ruqiya Hassan in her university of Edinburgh doctoral thesis.1.« cohesion is no more structural, it is external, marked by « lexico-grammatical items»» (Halliday & Hasan 1976)

Cohesion:

2.

A close relationship based on grammar or meaning between two parts of a sentence or a larger piece of writing.

(Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary)

Meaning: the relations between two or more

elements in a text that are independent of the

structure. For example for a personal pronoun

and an antecedent proper name, such as Aleena

…..she. A sementic relation of this kind may be

set up either within a sentence with the

consequence that when it crosses a sentence

boundry it has the effect of making the two

sentences cohere with one another.

Grammar:

Smaller linguistic units such as words, phrases,And clauses are joined together through cohesive devices (conjunctions) to construct a larger unit of text.

Cohesive devices may take a

number of forms, for example, pronouns, nouns,

conjunctions etc.

For example:

Dr. Ayesha examined the patient. She began by

checking her temperature.

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics by P.H. Mathews (1997), defines cohesion in

terms of syntactic unit (Sentences).

• A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics by David Crystal (1997) defines cohesion in terms of

a grammatical unit (words).

COHESION

Word Phrase/Clause/Sentence Discourse

Fusion Integration Relational markers

Types of Cohesion

Language is multiple coding system comprising three levels of coding.

Meaning: The semantic system Wording: The lexico-grammatical system

Sound/ Writing System: The phonological and orthographical system

Cohesive relation fit into the over all pattern of language.Cohesion is expressed partly through Vocabulary and

partly through grammar.

1. Grammatical Cohesion(i) Reference(ii) Substitution(iii) Ellipsis

2. Lexical CohesionThe distinction between grammatical cohesion and

lexical cohesion is a matter of degree.

Halliday & Hasan's (1976) Taxonomy of cohesive devices :

“reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion”,

further refined by Martin (1992).

• So we can say that cohesion is a part of text forming component in the linguistic system. It links together the elements that are structurally unrelated through the dependence of on the otherFor its interpretation. Without cohesion the semantic system cannot be effectly activated at all.

Tools of Cohesion

1. Reference2. Substitution3. Ellipsis4. Conjunction5. Lexical Items

1. Reference• Reference is used to describe the different ways in Which entities- things, people, events- are refered to within texts. • There are range of linguistic features,Which enables speakers and writers to make such References, for example pronouns….may refer to entities already mentioned or about to be mentioned.• There are certain terms in any language which cannot be interpreted semantically in their own right ratherThey make reference to something else within the text for theirinterpretation. J

Example of Reference

Doctor Faustus went to Gloucester in a shower of rainHe stepped in puddle right up to his middleAnd never went there again

He and There show that information about them is retrieved elsewhere within the text. It characterizes aParticular type of cohesion which is called reference.The relationship of reference is on semantic level. The reference items must not match the grammatical Item it refers to.

Reference can be sub-categorize as follow

Reference

 Exophoric Endophoric

  

Anaphoric Cataphor

1. Exophoric Reference

Grammatical term used to describe a linguistic feature in a text, which refers to something

out side of that text. Examples are words such as there, that, or here, when these are not

further elucidated in the text e.g.“The book is over there”

“For she is a jolly good fellow and so say all of us”.Here text is not indicating who he is?

2. Endophoric Reference

Grammatical term used to describe forms of reference made within any given text to other elements within the text e.g in the following

sentences: ‘She gave the books, to John. He left the room.

He is an example of endophoric reference, referring to John.

Endophoric relations are categorized either as (i) Anaphoric ( Reference back)

(ii) Cataphoric (Reference forward)

(i) Anaphoric ReferenceGrammatical term used to describe a linguistic

feature, which refers to a previously mentioned element in any given text.

In the case of the following two sentences, for example:“The water system is failing because of old pipes

and shortage of qualified technicians to repair them. These are the reasons why change is necessary”.

These has an anaphoric function, referring back to the reasons given in the preceding part of

the text.

(ii). Cataphoric ReferenceGrammatical term used to describe a linguistic

feature, which refers forward to another element in any given text. For example in the sentence

‘Here are two examples of fossil fuels: Coal and wood’, the word here has a cataphoric function.

ExampleChild: Why does that one go?

Father: that what?Child: that one

Father: that one what?Child: that parrot, that you kept in in the cage.

Types Of Reference

1.Personal Reference (Person )2. Demonstrative Reference ( Proximity)3. Comparitive Reference (General/ Particular Comparison)